The invention relates generally to structured report generation methods and apparatus, and in particular, to a method and apparatus for properly spacing and capitalizing words or phrases as they are inserted into a fixed document format, especially but not exclusively in conjunction with speech recognition.
The output of a speech recognition apparatus, words, phrases, or other speech strings or elements, is typically without either punctuation, capitalization or a recognition of the spacing between the elements. For example, the spacing between recognized words can vary in accordance with the context in which the words appear, and the decision whether to capitalize the initial letter of a word, for example, because the word appears at the beginning of a sentence, is typically not provided to the system. Accordingly, the output of a typical word speech recognition system is often a series of words or phrases in a format that does not follow standard punctuation or capitalization.
One particular application of a speech recognition system is to provide the text to be inserted into spaces or blocks left in a report form. This application, termed "structured report generation," allows a speaker to insert words or phrases into designated spaces of a report form. The application can also expand what is recognized by the recognition system so that if the recognized word is "normal," the text string inserted into the report is the sentence, "The heart is normal." The inserted words or phrases are often referred to as a "text string" and the space into which it is inserted is the "fill-in." More generally, a "text string" is a piece of text (which can be a word or a form with or without fill-ins) which is inserted as a block, generally as a result of a speech recognition process. The user, however, typically does not provide or indicate the spacing between the inserted word or phrase and the previous phrase, nor does the user indicate whether to capitalize the initial letter of a word which, for example, may begin a sentence.
Accordingly, absent further information, the system may provide a report which has incorrect word spacing (or "binding") and incorrect or no capitalization.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a method and apparatus for correctly spacing text strings inserted into a report form and for correctly determining whether to capitalize the initial letter of an inserted text string. Other objects of the invention are to provide such text binding and capitalization in a structured report generation system, to perform these tasks automatically and accurately, and to enable the system application to operate in real time.